Last August, Alykhan Alani ’12 (T5) joined the newly-established adolescent health care team at Anthony Jordan’s Woodward Health Center to address the increasing need for care among youth ages 10 to 19 in Rochester’s Southwest quadrant—an initiative that Alani is helping to spearhead through research and outreach efforts.

“We’re looking to the existing literature and conducting our own research to determine the specific health care needs and barriers to care for youth who live or attend school in the Southwest quadrant,” says Alani. “The goal is to better implement and market services we already offer, and expand our efforts where the need in the community is currently unmet.”

According to a 2011 youth risk behavior survey commissioned by the Rochester City School District, the number of students who regularly saw a primary care provider was around 69 percent. “The importance of preventative primary care for adolescents and their families cannot be overstated,” Alani explains. “What makes Woodward an integral and unique member of this community is that we are committed to meeting our patients’ needs regardless of their ability to pay.”

Alani is one of six fellows currently participating in Rochester Youth Year (RYY), an AmeriCorps VISTA-sponsored program that places recent graduates in community-based organizations for one year to create or expand initiatives addressing various challenges facing youth and families in Rochester. Graduates of Rochester Regional Network colleges, a consortium of seven institutions of higher education in the Rochester-area, are invited to apply to the program, which is based at the Rochester Center for Community Leadership (RCCL) at the University of Rochester.

Through the RYY program, Alani works alongside primary care providers at Woodward to analyze the health needs of youth residing in the 19th Ward and Plymouth-Exchange neighborhoods and build capacity for the implementation of youth programs and services there. Beyond meeting patients’ needs in a clinical setting, Alani also helps link youth to a variety of services, including HSE (high school equivalency) prep, tutoring and afterschool programs, access to food pantries, temporary housing, and conflict resolution workshops.

“Affordable, quality health care is a real need just about everywhere, but especially in this community,” says Alani. “Socio-economic status has profound implications for health and longevity. While we work in a dynamic and vibrant community, we must remain cognizant of the economic marginalization this community has, and continues to endure.”

Alani also conducts ethnographic research that seeks to understand and address non-biological determinants of health. “While we need to meet the immediate need for healthcare in our community, this effort cannot be divorced from the on-going struggle for economic, social, and environmental justice,” he explains. “When we begin to conceptualize interpersonal violence, addiction, housing and food insecurity, interpersonal and institutional racism, and even residential and business zoning as public health issues that affect our collective welfare, we’re confronted with an opportunity to address these challenges in unique and meaningful ways. Social determinants of health are often circumstantially or environmentally imposed on people–mitigating them requires us to continually chip-away at structural inequalities by not only interrogating the ways power and privilege operate in our own lives but also seeking to engage these structures at the institutional and policy-making levels.”

Alani also was brought on to strengthen the health center’s relationship with various youth-oriented community organizations operating in the Southwest quadrant, such as the M.K Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, Teen Empowerment, Rochester Youth Outreach, the Boys and Girls club, schools such as Wilson Commencement Academy and School 29, recreation centers, and faith-based institutions. He conducts focus groups with staff, volunteers, and youth from these partner organizations to ascertain their perspective on healthcare and facilitates the establishment of referral and enrollment networks.

Alani’s passion for community health and desire to live and work in Rochester after graduation was sparked the summer after his sophomore year while working at Anthony Jordan Health Center on Hudson Avenue as part of Rochester’s Urban Fellows Program. “That was my first experience with on-the-ground community health work, which fueled my desire to explore career opportunities within Rochester’s nonprofit sector,” he says.
Alani has maintained ties to Rochester’s public health program through his efforts at Woodward, hosting undergraduate research interns Alyssa Teck ’15 in the fall and Jenna Kole ’14 in the spring. Both were enrolled in Dr. Nancy Chin’s community engagement class.

“I firmly believe that service-learning initiatives allow students to have an engaging and meaningful experience with the Rochester community beyond shopping and nightlife. It can really change one’s perspective on this city,” he says. “Investing institutional resources into service learning programs and expanding the role of campus institutions like the Rochester Center for Community Leadership and University-affiliated partners like the Gandhi Institute is vital to fully realizing not only our commitment to Rochester, but our cherished and sanguine motto, Meliora.”

Last year, Alani completed a Take 5 project studying social capital and community development, which solidified his interests in grassroots and community organizing and non-profit work. He graduated last May with a bachelor’s in international health and society and minors in gender and women’s studies and religion. As an undergraduate, Alani was involved with RCCL, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), MetroJustice, and the Gandhi Institute (where he currently serves as a board member). After he completes his Rochester Youth Year fellowship in August, he plans on continuing to pursue a career in community health work and activism.

Those interested in applying to the 2014-15 Rochester Youth Year Program can apply here. The application deadline is Friday, March 7.

In the Photo: Attendees and speakers at a recent Woodward youth night.

Univ. Communications – It may be easy to forget with all of our schoolwork, social activities, and otherwise cushy college lives, that the University of Rochester is located in city whose poverty rate among children is ranked 11th in the nation. Since 2007, Rochester Youth Year (in partnership with AmeriCorps*VISTA since 2008) has been a program open to recent graduates of area colleges devoted to helping young people and their families in our community overcome the challenges of poverty.

The RYY Fellows work with local organizations to develop sustainable services and programs to address the self-identified needs of Rochester youth. Moreover, the program aims to empower young people and their families to take initiatives to improve their own neighborhoods. The fellows build lasting connections between the community, their host organization, and their university to promote solidarity and fruitful cooperation between the college communities and the city they inhabit.

This year, 12 RYY fellows are engaging with various organizations and communities to make an impact in the city; two of them are U of R grads.

Andrea Polanski, who earned a bachelor’s of science degree in biochemistry from Rochester, is working with the Rochester City School District’s Youth Development & Family Services Department. She is working to create a program that brings RCSD alumni back to the schools to mentor and tutor current students. Polanski is working on a marketing campaign to recruit volunteers and is building a database of potentially interested alumni that education-related agencies can contact to become involved with students.

Emma Rainwater, who graduated with a history degree from Rochester, is working with Foodlink and Freshwise Farms on their Youth Education Program to promote healthy eating habits in children and their families, as well as educate the community about local and sustainable agriculture. She will also aid in developing a nutrition education curriculum in local school and recruit local youth to come to Freshwise Farms for tours and lessons.

Two fellows hail from Nazareth College. Sara Heron graduated with a bachelor’s of arts in anthropology and history. She is continuing the work of former RYY fellows to expand refugee health promotion projects organized with the Brown Square Health Center. Erin Murphy who holds a bachelor’s of science degree in communication sciences and disorders, is working with the RCSD Health, Physical Education & Athletics Department to implement the Coordinated School Health Program in several local elementary schools. The goal of the program is to improve health and wellness in area schools through programing and mentoring.

Megan Maslach and Oscar Ortiz both graduated from the College at Brockport. Maslach is working with the Leadership Academy for Young Men at the RCSD to recruit and match male mentors from the community with students at the Academy. Ortiz, for his part, will work with the South East Neighborhood Service Center to help youth gain a more significant voice in community decision-making and to help them train the Neighborhood Association and Police Department on the most effective strategies for positive youth development.

Jennifer Moffitt, who holds a bachelor’s of arts in music from Roberts Wesleyan College, is devoting her year to improving the lives of refugees in Rochester through programs and initiatives at the Office of Community Medicine at Rochester General Hospital. She will research how refugees are cared for in the city and will develop a three-year strategic plan to improve refugee interactions with health services providers through language assistance, transportation, prescription guidance, and cultural awareness.

A graduate of St. John Fisher College with a degree in international studies and sociology, Stephanie Claire Moss will work to improve interest and participation in extracurricular activities at East High School, specifically with clubs geared toward civic engagement. She will also work to engage and empower parents of East High students, helping them become more active and productive participants in the young people’s lives.

Three fellows are graduates of SUNY Geneseo. Anait Tamanian will be working with Writers & Books to develop programming to increase and improve literacy among urban youth. Amy Ventura will be working to help find new sources of funding and development of the City of Rochester’s Biz Kid$ program, creating an advisory committee, and expanding the curriculum and camps offered to students. Finally, Leanne Richardson will spend her year assisting the Rochester-Monroe County Youth Bureau’s Youth as Resources program to gain wider community support and become more integrated with other youth-led organizations.

About Rochester Youth Year

The Rochester Youth Year Fellowship is an AmeriCorps*VISTA program designed to afford recent graduates from Rochester-area colleges the opportunity to remain in Rochester and work with selected youth-serving agencies, in order to alleviate poverty and improve opportunities for youth and their families. Rochester Youth Year is coordinated collaboratively by the following area colleges: Nazareth College, Roberts Wesleyan College, SUNY Geneseo, The College at Brockport, St. John Fisher College, and is housed at the University of Rochester’s Rochester Center for Community Leadership. For more information, visit http://www.youthyear.org/.

Article written by Maya Dukmasova, a Take 5 Scholar at the University of Rochester and an intern at University Communications. She majored in philosophy and religion and focused her Take 5 year on researching the way American media covers current events in the Muslim world. An aspiring journalist, Dukmasova has freelanced for Rochester Magazine, the Phoenix New Times, and the Daily News Egypt in Cairo. She also maintains two blogs, one devoted to culture and society in Russia (www.out-of-russia.com) and the other to photography (www.myorientalism.com).